


Flare

by dainochild



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Crossover, Cults, M/M, Past Abuse, but it's a proper pokemon crossover, idk what else to put at this point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 03:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8234387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dainochild/pseuds/dainochild
Summary: Recently dethroned Akielon Pokémon League Champion Damen has been recruited by Interpol to help investigate a suspected cult, Team Flare. Unfortunately, Prince Laurent keeps getting in the way, with his own agenda...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saltprince_](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=saltprince_).



> Hello and welcome! It took me literally months to come up with even that title and I still hate it so sorry if it changes!! It's hard to know what to call Pokémon AUs & crossovers. I'm not hot on the summary either but I wanted to get this posted already.
> 
> So! This will be primarily a Pokemon X&Y/Captive Prince crossover, that will incorporate parts of X&Y's plot, characters, so on. But it will do so in such a way that you don't need to have played either of those specific games to follow it. All you'll need to follow this is a basic understanding of the premise of Pokémon! So like, what Trainers are, Gyms, Champions, Badges, pokémon themselves.... And if you have played X&Y: it'll deviate a bit from the plot & details. Okay quite a bit.
> 
> If you're here for the Pokémon: sorry, this is mostly a Captive Prince thing. You'll need to have read that. Don't read it lightly though, it's a pretty extreme series... Talk to me about it! I've been told I give excellent warnings about Captive Prince's extreme content
> 
> SPEAKING OF: in terms of content warnings: at this point nothing much really applies, but there will be some of the canonical themes from Captive Prince and ethical questions around the treatment of pokémon. I wanna deal with the heavy stuff appropriately and will absolutely do so, but for the most part, I want this to be a fun little adventure with pokémon (which are just, the best, btw).
> 
> I'm very nervous posting this x: I hope it's enjoyable!!!

Damen had not expected many things he should’ve. Honestly, that was true about many things in his life, but none more than Jokaste taking the Championship from him.

“Too bad,” she’d said as her blastoise leant down for a high-five.

Since when had blastoise been able to evolve, Damen faintly wondered, even months later.

He lost the match, and with it, his title, his job, his income. Worst was the disappointment and shame in the eyes of his pokémon, no matter how he told them it was more his fault than theirs. He hadn’t been able to penetrate Jokaste’s strategy.

And that was that. Damianos, longest-reigning Champion of the Akielos Pokémon League, dethroned. Three months of training passed (in the mountains, as was traditional for dethroned Champions), yet he knew he wouldn’t be able to reclaim his title. He had thoughts of going to other regions to compete in their Pokémon Leagues, but the idea wasn’t as appealing as it had been when he was ten. The Akielos League was the only one he was interested in being Champion of. To be Champion anywhere else would be holding an empty title in a land he didn’t understand enough to deserve influence over.

Yet when Nikandros found him, saying he needed help, Damen found it difficult to be interested.

“Why my help,” he asked regardless.

“That’s classified until you agree,” Nikandros replied.

“I’m not agreeing until you tell me more.”

Nikandros joined Interpol seven years ago, when he was 20 and Damen was 18. Damen had become Champion, which meant staying in Ios to perform his duties, yet he still found himself concerned at Nikandros being far across the globe in Sinnoh, of all places. In the years since, Nikandros had been around the world, trailing behind the destruction left by organisations such as Team Rocket. The most recent were Team Plasma, who tried freezing the entire Unova region. It was stressful work and it had taken its toll on Nikandros. Usually when they met up he’d be halfway through a bottle of some spirits before speaking.

“We think there’s something going on in Kalos,” Nikandros said.

“Kalos. That’s in Vere? West of Belloy?”

“You did pass geography after all. And I know you passed Veretian.”

“Is that it?” Damen asked. “Your Veretian isn’t up to scratch?”

Nikandros replied in a worryingly authentic Veretian sneer, “More like my pokémon battling isn’t up to scratch and, being an idiot, you’d make excellent cult bait.”

“Cult bait? Are you supposed to be asking civilians to go undercover?”

“I’m sure you can handle it,” Nikandros said, “and what else do you have to do?”

“I’m training.”

“You aren’t going to beat Jokaste by doing the same thing you’ve always done,” Nikandros replied. “Think of it as an opportunity to start over, learn some new ideas about raising pokémon, and helping your best friend in the meantime.”

“I don’t think there’s much I could learn about raising pokémon in _Vere_.”

“You’d be surprised then. I have a contact there who’s researching a way of having already fully evolved pokémon evolve again temporarily.” As though this weren’t already pointed enough, Nikandros added, “A blastoise, for example.”

“I understood,” Damen grumbled.

Nikandros smiled, shrugging slightly. “Granted, the man is a self-indulgent, frivolous idiot on par with the next Veretian, but he has good intentions.”

“You call asking me to infiltrate an alleged cult ‘good intentions’?”

Nikandros replied, “Yes, well, this time we’d rather investigate before yet another poor ten-year-old gets roped into dealing with it.”

“In Unova, last year, I thought they were sixteen?”

“No, Rosa was fifteen. The one in Unova three years ago, Hilbert, he was sixteen. I’ll grant you, it’s better, but still too young.”

There wasn’t any arguing that.

“Well?” Damen urged. “Aren’t you going to tell me more about this alleged cult?”

“It’s called Team Flare.”

“Of course it is.”

Nikandros continued as though Damen hadn’t spoken, “They’re recruiting young Trainers. New Trainers, too, fresh from their first defeat. Those we’ve managed to speak with talk a lot about beauty and fashion.”

“Well. Vere.”

“Not in the usual vain Veretian way,” Nikandros insisted, “it’s much more sinister. But difficult to explain.”

Damen checked, “They’re really targeting children?”

“Of course they are.”

“If you’re so sure I can help…”

“You’re a high-profile Trainer who recently suffered a huge defeat, they’ll be all over you.”

“That’s a kind way to put it.”

Nikandros shrugged.

“Vere, though.” Damen shook his head. “What if I’m recognised?”

Nikandros rolled his eyes. “It’s not as though you’re Red.”

“You underestimate my notoriety.”

“Do I?”

Of course he did. Damen had been Champion for seven years. Most Champions lasted two years, max.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing, if they did recognise you,” Nikandros pointed out. “More if they recognised your actual intent.”

There was a lot Damen should have thought about, and should have asked. But it made sense. So he agreed to do it.

“Knew you’d come around,” Nikandros said. “Come on. We’ve got to get you ready.”

It was mostly refreshers. Who the most notorious local professors were, the landscapes, so on. Jokaste’s trick had been discovered in Vere, and it was called ‘Mega Evolution’. She was one of a dozen living people to have mastered it, so they say. It sounded impressive, but it was easy to be impressed by unknown things.

Damen hadn’t been to Vere since he was 15, following his father and Kastor through a business deal. While Akielos had shifted from a monarchy long ago, until their family was barely remembered as descended from the royal line, Vere was a constitutional monarchy. Damen had met the King, the King’s brother, some parliament members, and most memorably, Crown Prince Auguste. He was assured a distant cousin of the royal family was most likely involved, but not the rest, so please for god’s sake pay attention to how commoners talk, ‘rich boy’.

Nikandros had a certain way of being irritating that would be easier to argue against if he weren’t also usually right.

They would start in Lumiose, the largest city in both the Kalos region and Vere. There, Damen would touch base with Nikandros’ contact, Professor Augustine Sycamore.

“I haven’t heard his name before,” Damen said, “are you sure he’s any good?”

“He’s completely worthless, as a matter of fact,” was Nikandros’ glowing recommendation. “Still. He’ll give you a local pokémon and a PokéDex, the usual deal.”

That he thought a PokéDex was ‘the usual deal’ betrayed how little Nikandros did know about Trainers. PokéDex were difficult to make, and impossible to come by. Pokémon Professors of notoriety grand enough to impress the inventor, Professor Samuel Oak, were given his blueprints and permission to build their own version. Those versions were given to a chosen few. It was a television programme starring some Kanto child actor playing a character loosely based on Red that popularised the link between Trainers and PokéDexes. Every year thousands of new Trainers across the globe were disappointed not to come by one. You’d think they would realise as soon as they found out how rarely Pokémon Professors gave away pokémon, but the optimism of children can’t be faulted.

Nikandros left Damen to navigate Lumiose on his own. In theory, he’d given clear instructions to Sycamore’s lab. In practice? Less so.

Lumiose was a large city, easy to get to, impossible to navigate. The buildings climbed high into the sky, a mixture of hubris and disrespect for the environment of pokémon. Streets fluctuated unpredictably between wide enough for _cars_ of all things, to so narrow a man of Damen’s stature had to walk through side-ways. Damen ended up walking past the professor’s lab several times without realising because the buildings were all too similar, like an endless row of opulence. But he found it, and was permitted entry when he gave his name. He was quickly greeted at the gate by two aides: one a dark-skinned woman in her early 20s with lavender hair, the other a man of similar age, pale and blond.

“Hiya!” the woman said, “I’m Sina, and this is Dexio.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Dexio said.

Damen gave his full name, quickly realised they couldn’t pronounce it, and permitted them to call him by his nickname.

“So, you were really Champion?” Sina asked. “In, uh, where was it again?”

“Akielos.”

“Oh! Right!” With confusion: “You lot only have one league for the entire country?”

“It makes it easier to identify an actual champion, yes.”

“Huh. Well, I guess if you give the Champion actual political power, you don’t want too many of them, huh?”

“Imagine if Red or Gold got that when they were, what was it, ten?” Dexio said.

“Usually we don’t let children travel unattended,” Damen said.

They exchanged surprised looks.

“Well,” Sina said. “Well. That’s different, huh?”

Dexio supplied, “I guess Akielos is more dangerous than Kanto. Or here. Go figure.”

“Professor Sycamore is waiting,” Sina said, gesturing towards the building.

“Hopefully,” Dexio added. “He is a fickle genius with a love of lattes, after all.”

“He wrote a tourist guidebook about them. _Around Vere in 1000 Lattes_. It was a best-seller in Kanto.”

Damen said, “Sounds interesting.”

They entered the building. The first floor was a reception area, marble tiled and blue walled. Golden-framed oil paintings hung on the walls. There were leather couches to the right, a reception desk to the left. Dexio and Sina led him to the elevator, standing on either side of it like a guard.

“This is it,” Sina said. “The Professor’s on the third floor.”

Sycamore’s office was much the same as the reception area, with the addition of a thick red velvet carpet. Half-filled bookshelves lined one wall, the others covered in yet more oil paintings. Here and there, leading the way to the professor’s mahogany desk, were stacks of books. Some lay open on the ground, as though tossed carelessly over a shoulder. A proudly displayed gramophone played a Japanese pop song, somehow. And in the middle of all this tragedy was a man who could only be Sycamore. Average height, very pale, raven curls bouncing as he approached Damen, arms outstretched.

“Oh my,” Sycamore gasped. “You are — _something_ .” He looked up at Damen, leaning uncomfortably close as he said, “You remind me of the hero of my favourite book, _For the Love of a PokéLord_.”

All Damen could do was stare in disbelief.

“I mean, welcome,” Sycamore said. “Damianos, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So not only are you _something_ , you are the longest reigning Champion of modern times since Wallace of Hoenn,” Sycamore observed. “How exciting! Now I have met the longest reigning Champion in known history, and the shortest — that, by the way, is poor dear Green Oak, whose reign lasted sixty-six minutes and six seconds. Quite fittingly, actually.”

“I see,” Damen said. “Nikandros said —”

“Ah! Yes! Of course!” Sycamore cried. He sat back at his desk, opening a drawer. From it, he pulled out an electronic red square that could only be a PokéDex and a single PokéBall. “Dear Nikki explained about Team Flare, yes?”

 _Dear Nikki_. “To an extent. He explained that young trainers are being recruited and seems to believe it parallels other similar organisations in other countries.”

“That’s what I believe too,” Sycamore said. “Though, unlike those organisation, they are expected to pay a membership fee. A very high one. It’s possible the increase in pokémon thefts around the city are a result of this. Children selling poor pokémon to get enough money to join the organisation, you see.”

“And there isn’t enough evidence to shut them down?”

Sycamore visibly wilted. “Unfortunately, no.” He perked again. “But that is where you come in, dear Adonis!”

“Don’t call me that,” Damen said. “If I’m to be posing as a research assistant for you, you should tell me more about your research.”

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Sycamore hastily said. “Evolution. Mega Evolution. You know. No need for that. In fact, I recently started to employ a group of young adults to help complete the PokéDex, and they didn’t ask a single question about my research. The innocence of youth! How admirable. Do focus on your own mission, do not concern yourself with my research, simply the PokéDex, that’ll do, yes.”

Damen wondered if Sycamore was even a real Pokémon Professor.

“Now, here, take these,” Sycamore said, sliding the PokéDex and PokéBall across the table. “The PokéDex is very simple to use. Much like an iPhone. Mine is rose gold — both my PokéDex and iPhone, of course. Nikandros said you requested a specific starter, so here it is.”

“I didn’t request any pokémon,” Damen said.

“Oh? He said you did,” Sycamore said, frowning. “Well! No matter. A Champion of such longevity as yourself must be spectacular with all pokémon, no?”

No. Damen picked up the PokéBall, pressing the button to release the monster inside. It wasn’t even half a metre tall, stood on two legs with long claws on its feet. The front of its body (including its wide-eyed smiling face) was brown, its back covered in bright green soft hair and quills, which reached up to hood its head. It wagged its tail as it waved its arms at Damen, giving an excited cry.

“A chespin!” Sycamore declared. “Check it with your new PokéDex!”

When pressed, the PokéDex opened from a red square to a rectangle, with the screen in the middle. On it, an image of the pokémon was displayed, along with its species name, typical physical characteristics, confirmed behavioural patterns, mythology surrounding it, so on. Damen’s focus was its typing: Grass. Not a great start; Grass-Types were low on stamina and speed, which was a problem with their defensive weakness to a large number of other Types. Grass-Type attacks were ineffective against the majority of pokémon, and those they were super effective against tended to have high defensive stats anyway.

Still. Once even Argos had seemed a poor battle choice, and now she was his ace.

“All right,” Damen said, taking a moment to carefully scratch the pokémon’s head (it was softer than the quills made it look; most likely it’d harden them for battle) before recalling it to its ball. “Was there anything else?”

“Ah, yes, did Nikandros tell you where Team Flare members are most often scene?”

“In the plazas around Lumiose Tower, yes,” Damen said, “he mentioned that they wear identical orange suits and hairstyles, as well.”

“Then you know as much as I do,” Sycamore said. “Magnificent, no?”

Hardly a difficult achievement, in fact.

“Just one last thing.” Sycamore slid a business card across the table. “Here are my contact details here, and on the back, you’ll find my personal number.” An eyelash flutter. “If you find you want to… _talk_.”

Yikes.

Damen picked up the card, PokéDex and the chespin’s Pokéball,  forced his thanks, and went back to the elevator. He slid the items in his bag, pausing to look at chespin’s ball. Nikandros’ plan was simple, yet training an entirely new pokémon, possibly even a new party of pokémon…

Damen slid chespin’s ball into the bag rather than placing it by Argos’ on his belt.

After exchanging a few mild words with the assistants, Damen left. Lumiose was bustling, crowds shoving past him, some of them riding enormous horned pokémon the PokéDex informed him were gogoat. There were even _cars_. Damen could count on one hand the number of cars he’d seen in Akielos in his entire lifetime. A single Veretian street had that beat. Thus was the arrogance of Vere; defying nature for indulgence on every street.

Damen walked into a narrow alley. It would lead to the kind of plaza where Team Flare members were known to recruit. Though everywhere else was dry, Damen has to step around a large puddle of water on the limestone. Potentially suspicious.

A person dropped from above, directly in his path. Most likely a Trainer from the dark blue jacket whose hood was pulled up. As he straightened (to an adult height), the Trainer drew a sword, a lot like a gladius. Behind them, there was a pokémon’s cry; Damen glanced to see the water reconvening into a vaporeon, which was closing in on him from the other side.

So, definitely suspicious.

“I have you trapped,” he said.

“So it seems.”

He pulled back his hood. And his face was familiar.

“Do you know who I am?”

The cheekbones, the golden hair, the blue eyes. Yes. He’d seen them all before, in doting pictures that did no justice. Perhaps it was that his older brother took terrible selfies; perhaps it was the weak light catching hair and shadowing features just right. But Damen knew what it really was. Stillness did no justice, creating a statue that would never capture the immediate breath-taking beauty of this young man’s presence. Even as he had Damen cornered in an alley with a sword in his face while dressed as an everyday Trainer.

Impatiently, he said, “I am Laurent.”

“I know,” Damen said.

Laurent’s eyes flashed. He stepped closer, pressing the blade against Damen’s chest. “You are going to tell me what happened to my brother.” 

Something about the sword pressed to Damen’s chest was odd. It wasn’t the situation to figure it out; Laurent was clearly desperate.

“I don’t know what happened,” Damen replied. “The last time I saw him was when we battled.”

“And he hasn’t been seen since,” Laurent replied, “suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I don’t know anything about it, though.”

“He was never seen leaving the Elite Four building,” Laurent said.

“That’s often the case,” Damen said, “there’s a series of tunnels that allow challengers a secret exit. Your brother took one. It should have come out in Ios.”

“And why should I believe he left as you say?”

“There’s security footage,” Damen said. “If he’s missing, aren’t the police investigating?”

“ _I’m_ the one asking the questions here. Can you get me that footage, or are you that powerless without your title?”

Damen said, “Depends on whether you stab me or not.”

Laurent’s lips curled upwards. “I think it depends on whether you want your precious arcanine back or not.” And suddenly, he held a PokéBall in his other hand. Damen checked his belt on instinct but he already knew.

Except, he didn’t know why Argos wasn’t bursting out of her PokéBall. All pokémon would do so at will, it was a key factor of the design, so unless something was wrong with them…

Laurent said, “Did you know status effects can be inflicted through most PokéBalls?”

“That’s bullshit.”

“You know it isn’t, otherwise she’d be helping you,” Laurent said. “Or is she so disappointed in your failure as Champion she’d prefer a stranger?”

Damen couldn’t answer that. It was too stupid to warrant it.

“Two hours, at the centre of Magenta Plaza,” Laurent said. “Bring the footage.”

Damen was cornered. A sword in front of him, a vaporeon behind him, and Argos in the hands of a smirking prince. All he had was a chespin that looked like it would fall over from a slight breeze.

 _He likes to play games_ , Auguste had once said of Laurent.

“Fine.”

It wasn’t like there were any negative outcomes for him. This was a melodramatic little prince getting too worked up and acting out. Worst case scenario, Laurent wouldn’t find his brother. Damen was confident he wouldn’t be tricked by Laurent again, now he knew of what he was capable.

The vaporeon walked around him. Laurent kept glaring, even as he put the sword away, even as he mockingly toyed with Argos’ PokéBall, even with the smirk still on his lips.

Damen hated Vere.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my pal Salt for talking me through so much of this fic, you're a great dude, dude. Consider the gifting a token of affection x:


End file.
